Big Daddy Wants Me

9: Dolores.

Two weeks later…

It’s routine now – my imprisonment.

I wake up to groceries on the table and a list of chores. I make my breakfast first and then I do them. I’m not sure why; there really is no incentive for me to do so. It’s not like Fred can punish me any more than he already has. What’s he going to do? Beat me? Rape me?

I guess I do them out of spite. He probably expects me to disobey him, so I follow his instructions to a T.

I sweep, I mop, I do the dishes, clean the counter, clean the sink. I even do his laundry. I stuff pieces of cotton into my nose when I do so I don’t inhale his scent. Even now, as much as I hate him, it still awakens something inside me that, as hard as I try, I cannot suppress.

I take a late-morning and late-afternoon walk around the property. I stay close enough to the house to avoid the wolves, and then I come back and make him dinner, which I leave for him on the table. He eats in his room every night. He clearly does not want to see me.

I haven’t seen him at all since that night. I don’t even know where he goes during the day. But I have my books; he’s made sure of that. Fantasy mostly, with some graphic novels too.

I thought you might like these.

That’s what the note said.

Fuck you.

That’s what I wrote back before sliding it under his door.

I kept the books, though, and he was right: I did like them.

Then I make my own meal, read, and go to bed. And some nights, when I lose my resolve, I do something so shameful I hate myself every time after I do it.

I think about Fred and…I touch myself.

I rationalize it by telling myself it’s just my innate, biological, womanly instincts and responses to a sexy alpha male living so close to me. That I can’t deny what we did together or how incredible it was. But that doesn’t make me feel much better when I come down and I’m lying in bed staring up at the ceiling wondering whether this will be the month I miss my period and what’s left of my life comes crashing down on me.

What kills me is that I still want to have Fred’s baby. I want to watch my belly and breasts grow, have him tell me that I have that “pregnant glow,” and I want to hold our child in my arms with its father by my side.

And I hate myself for still believing that could happen.

“Life isn’t a fairy tale, Dolores,” I tell myself as I soap up the sponge and begin to do the dishes.

I like the fact that there isn’t a dishwasher; it gives me something to do. And the window by the sink looks out at the driveway, so if I see Fred’s car coming up, I can quickly go to my room – right where he wants me to be.

And tonight, just like clockwork, I see the tell-tale flicker of headlights skating across the trunks of the trees, proceeding his arrival, and I hurry up, scrubbing the plate I’m working on and setting it in the strainer. I’m about to head to my room when I look back out the window, and instead of seeing Fred’s car coming up the drive, I see an unfamiliar SUV.

It’s huge. Intimidating. All black with blacked out windows, and with the lights aimed right at me, it’s impossible to make out the driver. But just from the way he’s driving, I can tell it’s not Fred.

Quickly, I shut off all the lights in the cabin and duck by the living room window. Three men step out of the car, all dressed in black with masks over their faces. Each of them holding a gun.

Adrenaline dumps into my limbs, and my chest goes cold. Sweat pushes its way from my pores as I race into the bedroom and lock the door.

“s**t!” I hiss under my breath. What now? There’s only one way in and one way out of this stupid cabin, and it’s the door where those armed men are standing.

But who are they? More men like Fred come to kill me? Men hired by my father come to bring me home? At this point, I’m not even sure which I would prefer. But either way, I do the dumbest but only thing I can think of and hide myself under the bed.